MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK advises against travel to deteriorating South Sudan

Fears of civil war have mounted after last week's arrest of Vice President Riek Machar

The United Kingdom has urged its citizens to leave South Sudan immediately due to escalating tensions that threaten a return to civil war, as of March 30, 2025. “If you are in South Sudan and judge it safe to do so, you should leave now. If the unstable security situation deteriorates, routes into and out of South Sudan may be blocked. Juba airport may close or be inaccessible,” the FCDO noted, adding that things “could deteriorate rapidly and unpredictably.”

The Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) warned of the new conditions following the British Embassy in Juba reducing staff and suspending in-person consular services on March 26, with the US, Germany, and Norway also scaling back operations amid fears of instability.

“Regional developments may also affect international transport. For example, in 2019 and 2023, events in Sudan caused South Sudan’s airspace to close temporarily,” the FCDO also recalled.

Tensions stem from a breakdown in the 2018 peace deal between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, worsened by recent clashes in Upper Nile state and Machar’s reported house arrest after an armed intrusion at his residence

The UN and Western leaders, including UK Foreign Minister David Lammy, have called for de-escalation, warning that the peace agreement’s collapse could plunge South Sudan—independent since 2011—back into conflict, risking a humanitarian crisis and regional instability as the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces are fighting the White Army militia, which is primarily made up of Nuer people, the vice president’s ethnic group.

The FCDO also advised against all travel to the landlocked country, noting that remaining is at individuals’ own risk, with limited consular support available.

Last week, Machar’s followers reported that troops entered the vice president’s residence, disarmed his bodyguards, and issued an arrest warrant for him “under unclear charges.” Machar was later said to have been placed under house arrest, thus crushing the 2018 peace agreement that ended the 2013 civil war. The UN has also warned that the vice president’s arrest “takes the country yet one step closer to the edge of a collapse into civil war and the dismantling of the peace agreement.

A return to conflict is feared to worsen the humanitarian crisis in East Africa, challenging neighboring countries and international aid organizations.